The present invention relates to an apparatus for drying wet steam and subsequently superheating the dried steam.
An apparatus of this type, having a cylindrical tank, a separator disposed in the tank, and a superheater disposed next to the separator in the tank, and comprising a plurality of tube bundles is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 4,103,647, which belongs to the assignee of the present application. With this known apparatus, it is possible to have only a single stage superheating of the dried steam, because the central channel is provided as a flow-in channel for all of the tube bundles, with the dried steam flowing into this channel from below. Since in the channel the steam must be distributed over the entire axial length of the tube bundles, from which the steam exits outwardly essentially radially from the inside, the channel must have a relatively large cross-sectional area in order to accommodate an axially directed flow.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus of the aforementioned general type where it is possible to have a two-stage superheating in the superheater, and where it is possible to have a relatively small overall size of the tank.